"Although exercise both indoors and out are commendable," Princess Rapture said with a hint of exasperation masked by graceful manners as she looked up from the tablet she was perusing, "could you please desist from bouncing that ball against the wall?"

"Right you are Rappy," Bubbles Bannatyne said with a smirk and threw it out the open window without looking. There was the faintest of shrieks and a crash so she popped her auburn-haired curls over the balcony to see a mistress gathering some potted plants together in a surviving bowl while looking around at the mysterious projectile that seemingly appeared from nowhere. "Oops," Bubbles said and ducked back in.

"Oops indeed. I hope you will not be so clumsy when we go skating in Xenia in a few weeks," the princess warned. The two girls of Dormitory Flare were due to have a vacation in the princess's homeland, the Highly Romantic Winkel of Xenia, ruled by her father King Zolid. The place was so cold lakes froze even in summer.

"It's a shame we have to leave poor Sunshine here though," the redhead deflected criticism with a heartfelt regret.

"She is thankfully on the mend," Rappy began when there was a clatter and the Massking twins noisily entered the dormitory where the only two occupants looked up in disapproval at such barbaric manners, well one did anyway.

"You are still here?" one twin said.

"You haven't left?" the other twin noted.

"Frangea, for all its heat, is a pretty cool place to hang out during the summer break," Bubbles laughed. "Besides we can't leave until Foam Fullness which is two weeks away still."

"When the storm barriers are down we shall gracefully flit to the high peaks of Xenia," the princess added and smiled.

"Till then, we'll keep Lady Sunshine company and cheer her along to recovery. Don't see you doing much of that."

"We cheered her three minutes ago," Divvy sniffed.

"Four minutes now, time flies," Fizzy sniffed even louder.

"And how is our desert beauty?" Princess Rapture asked, "still as glum as this morning?"

"Ooh, more so. We're going to visit again this evening," the twins declared in saintly style.

"I shall join you then, I think," the princess added, impressed with such friendly devotion. This produced an unexpected panic.

"No need, we got it covered," one of them said, waving a hand dismissively.

"Besides, it looks as if you'll be quite busy with that tablet," the other threw in, peering with vague interest at the news streams scrolling across the small bright screen. "Lots of words to read there, especially as they keep changing." The drifting text was giving her a headache so she took a step back and shook her head.

"Updates," Bubbles said, "that's the nature of news across the Winkels. There is a war in the offing. Not only is my Xenia vacation on hold, but peace talks between two neighbouring lands have stalled for the leader of one is stuck here in Frangea at a vital moment in the negotiation."

"Can't they message and chat?" Divvy said indignantly.

"You know, say hi, let's make peace," Fizzy added her diplomatic skills to the mix.

"It appears," and Rappy tilted the tablet to show the floating words again, making them bigger, "the President of Dollish has to imprint any treaty in person. Yet she is far away from her land due to illness, recovering like our poor Sunshine, in some grand private mansion in Bubbles's very own Blossom Bay. Until Foam reaches Fullness and weakens the barriers she cannot travel, and so the negotiations with the twin Winkel of Dillosh have stalled. The Dilloshians threaten war if certain conditions are not met."

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

"Twinkel! Twinkel!" the twins hooted on hearing the words twin and Winkel close together.

"Seems they are pushing for a fight, for they are owed money in plenty," Bubbles added, having absorbed something of this international incident through the medium of potential fisticuffs.

"And Dollish is currently impoverished, though the president is said to be sitting upon an enormous treasure that would resolve the problem."

"By the sacred hamster of Ragadoon!" Fizzy eventually exploded at all this high politics.

"Sounds seriously like nothing we can do about all that," Divvy declared with equal irreverence. "So best to forget it and go play. Where's my ball? I left it over there," pointing to the top of a cupboard.

"I believe it's out in the courtyard," Bubbles said, looking innocently up at the ceiling where a large black spider perched upon a light fitment and watched events with beady-eyed interest.

The twins asked no explanations, being preoccupied with matters of their own, thus they sought the ball, which had nestled next a statue of some draped figure playing upon a harp of sorts, and found themselves staring into the angry bespectacled eyes of the botany mistress, Miss Zacharim.

"I thought," she said in brittle tones, "once summer break started this place would be a haven of peace and I could transfer some of my beloved cacti to the staff study room in safety. Behold," and she showed the patches of sooty soil upon the flagstones and fragments of pots scattered here and there.

"Did they try to make a run for it?" Divvy asked in a small voice.

This remark resulted in the ball being confiscated and the twins set to re-potting the cacti for the rest of the afternoon, followed by a session with first aid to plaster finger tips pricked by the very same cacti.

"Shame," Fizzy said, wiggling her plaster tipped fingers, "we've got less time to practice using the Triple Shield before visiting Sunshine this evening."

"I hope I can still fiddle the lock with these padded things on," Divvy said. This conversation was held in a side corridor lest they be overheard. They were preparing to filch and replace the trophy at an opportune moment while those left in the school were having an evening meal. Thus they watched the parade of mistresses with no homes to go to and pupils not yet with Frangea host families passing below until a gong sounded that heralded the start of the meal.

Like secret agents totally devoid of stealth skills, the two blonde figures made their way across the polished floor of the wooden gallery, slipping this way and that in their nervous hurry and then pausing by the great glass case in which the silvery trophy sat upon its velvet stand. Next to it was a brass plate with the names of those key participants in the Triple Shield Challenge that ended summer term and which had resulted in victory for Miss Plazenby's school. The twins read with pride the name of Sunshine Allouette among the number.

Divvy made all sorts of faces as she fiddled with the lock in the way Sharshua had taught her and Fizzy almost burst with laughter at the facial contortions.

"Got it!" she finally said and a glass panel slid silently aside. Fizzy produced the foil replica, slightly dented though she had tried to straighten it out a bit, and with nimble swiftness the other twin swapped the two trophies over.

"No one," Fizzy said, wrapping the real trophy in her scarf and standing back a bit, "will notice the difference."

"Unless they looked at it of course," Divvy added, tilting her head to give her own appraisal of their handiwork.

"Let's scarper to the back playing field for some fun!"

They had also received instructions from the ever helpful Octora girl, always willing to research just about anything, on how the mechanism of the three parts of the Triple Shield worked to create a portal based on the world's underlying power grid. Thus they sought a shadowy part of the grounds half hidden by trees and shone a torch upon the silver markings of the trophy.

The Shield was made of three embossed semi-discs that overlapped in symmetrical fashion. Singly they appeared as crescent moons with small wings, while two together looked like a pretty butterfly. However adding the third created a three-petaled flower that when twisted a certain way created a door in space which the holder could simply walk through. The trick was calibrating it to place the traveller in the desired destination. It did not help with Divvy having padded fingers.

"Let's give Sunshine a fright," she said confidently, twisting the central rings with its coordinate numbers. A glowing oval of light appeared as if projected from a torch and the girl leapt through it without hesitation.

"Wait a bit, I think you pushed one ring too far," Fizzy squeaked in alarm but desperate not to be separated from her twin she too leapt through the oval as she knew it lasted only a few seconds.

They found themselves not in Sunshine's sick room but another dark grassy field elsewhere on Mount Syzywyg.

"That was lucky," Fizzy gasped, picking herself up and brushing herself down. "We're still at Miss Plazenby's."

A sudden flurry of footsteps in the darkness and a tall boy in uniform appeared on the scene.

"What," came an outraged voice, cracking a little for he was at a most difficult age, "are girls doing on the sacred grounds of Chancefleet, the Most Prestigious College for Young Gentlemen in all of Frangea and the world besides!"

"Uh oh," Fizzy modified her previous lucky assessment.